CBO Estimates $496 Million for 2025 Military Deployments

The deployment of National Guard and active-duty Marine personnel to six U.S. cities by the Trump administration cost taxpayers approximately $496 million from June through December 2025, according to an estimate released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The analysis, requested by Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and nearly a dozen other Democratic senators, projects that maintaining similar deployments in 2026 could exceed $1.1 billion annually.

The deployments began on June 7, 2025, when President Trump activated about 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 active-duty Marines in Los Angeles following protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that turned violent in isolated instances. The president cited the need to protect federal personnel and property amid what he described as rising crime in urban areas. Subsequent activations included 2,500 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., in August; 1,500 to Memphis, Tennessee, in September; personnel to Portland, Oregon, that same month; 500 total to Chicago, Illinois, in October, including members from Illinois and Texas; and 350 to New Orleans,...